General Information

This is my TAS of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for the Nintendo 64, completed in 36:37.42. This game has been a gargantuan task for me to complete, and I am incredibly thankful that it is done with. It has been a work in progress for approximately 14 months, although the bulk has been completed in the last 3 months.
  • Genre: First person shooter
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Uses death as a shortcut
  • Manipulates luck
  • Plays at hardest level
  • Colors a dinosaur red.... with it's own blood
-Fuzzy Goal-
  • Only takes damage when it saves time or serves a purpose
It's hard to make Turok desync. Just use the plugins that are loaded with the movie file (video plugin is Jabo's Direct 3D8 1.6), along with version 1.2 of the ROM, and you'll be fine. For those of you who never use Mupen 0.5 v8 and need to find the TAS input plugin, it can be found here. It should be noted that the video plugin causes you to be able to see through many more walls than was originally possible with the actual cartridge, however I haven't found a suitable replacement. Rices plugin works fairly well, except it has some flickering problems with the fog and sky, and since fog is everywhere in this game, it gets annoying fast.
The backstory for Turok has something to do with a guy named the Campaigner trying to take over an alternate dimension called the Lost Lands. Turok is a Native American from our dimension transported to the Lost Lands to stop the Campaigner. He must fight through 8 levels of soldiers, raptors, grizzly-bear dinosaur dudes, evil priests, demons, robots, smurfs, teletubbies, and 4 bosses in order to vanquish the Campaigner. Keys need to be collected to open up each subsequent level, and there’s plenty of blood, guts, and dinosaur gore throughout to spice things up.

Techniques used for this run

This run has spanned my career here at TASvideos, so my techniques have improved and grown with the making of this. The first two levels, up until the Longhunter boss, were done within my first 4 months of TASing, so a lot of trial and error was used. They aren’t necessarily worse than the rest of the levels, but I think I was able to add a bit more entertainment in the subsequent levels since I wasn’t so concerned about figuring out how to TAS correctly.
As for the actual tricks used, there’s plenty. I won’t go into details (many of which can be found in the Turok discussion thread), but examples include wall jumping, wall cannons, jumping/walking on water, 20 hertz pulse rifle firing, wall zipping (only seen in the early part of level 1), wall clipping, and luck manipulation for ammo drops and enemy fire. RAM viewing was used to achieve optimal height for wall jumps and wall cannons, along with general jumping scenarios. In addition, it was used for HP watching to both conserve ammo and provide as short as possible boss fights.

Likely questions to be asked

Why do you have to run sideways the whole game? It’s annoying and gives me a headache!

Sorry, but blame the programmers for that. If, in their infinite wisdom, they had decided to make Turok behave like a normal person, and not give him a 30% speed boost when he runs diagonally, I would have been happy to present you with a front-facing run. Trust me, if that were the case, this would have been done ages ago. Instead, I was forced to consider the aesthetics of running forward, versus the 15+ minutes the run would have been extended. Speed won. However I have tried to provide interesting and entertaining views when it does not affect time, such as watching character death animations, killing random enemies as I fly by, toying with death, etc.

I noticed a small part in level X where you could probably save a few frames, why didn’t you?

Firstly, let me start off by saying it is my official opinion that first person shooters suck to TAS. Add in the aforementioned diagonal running, and it gets even worse. This spent 14 months sitting on my computer, a third of the way done, because it was such a pain to work with. So I will not lie and say this run is perfect, because it isn’t. I’m sure there are places where frames can be shaved, but at the same time I did put a lot of work into making this the best I could. I tried to produce a run that will hit at least a technical score of at least 8/10 with most people, and if I ever attempt a version 2 (in a looooong time), I will certainly try to perfect it.

This isn’t very entertaining, it’s just running from place to place.

That’s not a question. Please submit all queries in the form of a question.

Ok, why should I find this entertaining, since it’s just running from place to place?

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, but judging from the response to nfq’s previous run, a lot of people find it entertaining to see this game destroyed. And to offset the 30 some odd miles Turok runs in his very busy day, I have killed some things along the way. So if you watch it and aren’t entertained, I apologize for wasting 35 minutes of your life:)

Are there any improvements you know about?

There’s a couple that may or may not prove to be major (>2 seconds) times savers. A death warp is possible in level 4, just after the second key. This would save roughly 5 seconds, but would cause Turok to lose his backpack (probably dropped it when he fell). Without a backpack, the carrying capacity for grenades is reduced, making for a (seemingly) longer Mantis fight. However, due to the speed and impact of the pulse rifle (1 shot worth 13 HP can be delivered every 3 frames), it may be faster to just manipulate energy refills than to worry about a few extra grenades.
It may be possible in order to access the first key of level 4 using walls jumps/cannons, but whoever figures out how to do that is a better person than me.

Special Thanks:

I would firstly like to thank nfq. Despite his odd views on electricity, God, gravity and magenetism, he put together a damn good run that included a very good route and some techniques I hadn’t seen before. Many of the tricks shown can be credited to him, or the Turok community in general. I would also like to thank everyone who has posted in the game thread, and everyone who has pushed me to finally get this done, including Adelikat, Comicalflop, and JXQ (among others). Finally, I apologize it took so long to get done, but I hope it was worth the wait! Any questions will be happily answered in the discussion thread to the best of my abilities.
Suggested Screenshot: Input frame 16534

adelikat: Accepting + Encoding.

adelikat: Nevermind about the encoding. Mupen wants to continually crash my computer. Someone else will have to take this one.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14776
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1872: mmbossman's N64 Turok: Dinosaur Hunter in 36:37.42
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
I liked how you shot the already-dead dinosaur with the grenade launcher while waiting for the wall to come down... and then ran across a pond like a ninja. A ninja Indian who runs around stabbing raptors in the head. It was worth the wait, and I had a great time watching. The pulse timing and walljumps were particularly impressive. My only gripe is that you didn't shoot the monkeys. Was there a particular reason for that? Edit: obviously my vote is not contingent on the feasibility of monkey-shooting, so I voted Yes.
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Dromiceius wrote:
My only gripe is that you didn't shoot the monkeys. Was there a particular reason for that?
They don't die:( Or even get hurt. Unless you have the particle accelerator, which then blows them up into crispy little monkey nuggets. But since I don't get that until the last minute of the game, I couldn't show it off. I like how you think though;)
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User, Experienced player (531)
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
A couple of questions first Why use rom 1.2? Why did you not state the video plugins? I assumed that didn't matter, but it desynced on frame 16,000 so I then had to watch it back on the correct plugins. _____ As for the run, since I've TASed an FPS I would know what to expect. I find the movements throughout jerky and unoptimized. All I ever see on the input display for most of the time is <99>99 or not pressed at all apart from two C buttons. Having it not pressed all the way would have made turning smoother, more optimzed and more watchable. So I'll say meh run, meh game and meh vote. However, this will almost definitely be accepted since it is a N64 movie and those are by far the most entertaining to watch and there already seems to be a surge of people voting yes just so they can watch it since they cant on their emulator
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
AKA wrote:
A couple of questions first Why use rom 1.2? Why did you not state the video plugins?
ROM 1.2 was used because there are some sync problems with the first two, according to nfq. Since I started this back when I was a newb, I took his word for it. As for the video plugin, it shows up when you load the movie. But I'll change it to specifically state which one to use in the submission text.
AKA wrote:
I find the movements throughout jerky and unoptimized. All I ever see on the input display for most of the time is <99>99 or not pressed at all apart from two C buttons. Having it not pressed all the way would have made turning smoother, more optimzed and more watchable.
This was definitely apparent in the first two levels, however it was minimized from the longhunter on out because I had learned how to use the tools better. And if I had restarted, it never would have gotten done, and I knew there were a lot of people who wanted to see it. Starting after the first boss, the movements become a lot less jerky, at least when I watch it. You may feel differently. Also, there usually is no need to do a long, arching turn, when a sharp quick turn will work just as well, especially on walkways, in tunnels, and in other confined spaces. Also, many jerky movements may be used to avoid corners and enemies, the later of which don't respond well to long, drawn out turns.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Skilled player (1669)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
This was a long holy molyfest. Thank you for creating a GOOD N64-TAS which I could enjoy all the way through. Hell yes-vote.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
Editor, Experienced player (729)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
AKA wrote:
However, this will almost definitely be accepted since it is a N64 movie and those are by far the most entertaining to watch™
sigh.... if only it worked that way.... Well worth the wait. A worthy addition. Yes vote. What else can I say besides I am glad I have prodded you long enough and often enough for you to finally finish this?
Homepage ☣ Retired
Joined: 6/9/2006
Posts: 614
Location: Mettmann
i liked it ! and the wips too! very good improvement
Active player (489)
Joined: 1/12/2007
Posts: 682
I'm not really familiar with the game, but the run was very fast-paced and entertaining throughout, and kept me interested the whole time while watching. Yes vote.
emu
Active player (380)
Joined: 1/2/2007
Posts: 188
Location: Germany, Munich
Very nice. Route planning, hp/ammo/life management, death abuse, blood and glitches. What more can one expect? The strafing was a little downer, but in my opinion the absolutely right decision. Thanks, mmbossman and nfq, for your work you put into turok.
Joined: 10/15/2007
Posts: 685
Turok is one of the N64 ROMs (along with Mario Kart 64) that somehow always makes Vista crash after a couple minutes. I'll give it another go when I have access to my desktop later on, but what little I was able to see before my laptop went down looked promising.
Kirby said so, so it must be true. ( >'.')>
Joined: 4/30/2006
Posts: 480
Location: the secret cow level
You have to remember... the sideways running isn't some kind of glitch in the game, they actually required it in some places. There were jumps you couldn't make without the speed boost you get from straferunning.
Joined: 10/15/2007
Posts: 685
I don't remember ever being forced into diagonal jumping on the console. I remember inventing lots of new curse words while looking straight down at the ground and using the map to make the ridiculous jumps, but I'm fairly certain I made every one moving straight forward. Had to tie the controller to my hand to prevent it from taking flight like a majestic eagle, though.
Kirby said so, so it must be true. ( >'.')>
Banned User
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
superjupi wrote:
Turok is one of the N64 ROMs (along with Mario Kart 64) that somehow always makes Vista crash after a couple minutes.
That fulfills my WTF quota for the day. Thanks. :P
Joined: 9/26/2007
Posts: 55
Location: Michigan
Holy expletives he swims like a caffeinated dolphin. Yes vote, although the T-Rex fight would have been more visually appealing if all of those pulse rifle blasts were headshots.
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
I liked it. Yes vote here.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Joined: 4/30/2007
Posts: 151
well nfq's run got 20-0-1 before being rejected so if this gets any worse i will be confused so i see a green light for this
Post subject: Re: #1872: mmbossman's N64 Turok - Dinosaur Hunter in 36:37.
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota
NesVideoAgent wrote:
Any questions will be happily answered in the discussion thread to the best of my abilities.
mmbossman, what is it like to be god? yes.
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Post subject: Re: #1872: mmbossman's N64 Turok - Dinosaur Hunter in 36:37.
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
stickyman05 wrote:
NesVideoAgent wrote:
Any questions will be happily answered in the discussion thread to the best of my abilities.
mmbossman, what is it like to be god? yes.
I'm composed entirely of magnetism, which is the same thing as light, which is the same thing as mass, which is the same thing as gravity. *sigh* I miss nfq... ;)
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 7/21/2006
Posts: 747
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Wow That was amazing...Obvious Yes vote.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Another FPS that boils down to watching low-res textures fly by. I love Turok, and it saddens me to see so much of the game left unappreciated. While I can accept that a lot of things were sacrificed in the name of time, there were a few things that could have been done to kick up the entertainment value. Why didn't you ever throw up the map whenever you were doing a complicated area/large skip in the stage? Why did you leave so many enemies untouched when ammo conservation never seemed to play a huge role in some parts? Why didn't you make that alien commit suicide in the last stage, rather than simply offing him? I don't know what to vote. This was well played, but a huge chunk of the entertainment you can get out of this game was lost in exchange for moments when I couldn't even tell what was going on, and I used to play this all the time. Is this a good run? Yes. Is it an entertaining run? Not so much. Meh vote.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
I never thought having the map present on screen would provide entertainment, to tell you the truth. I used it some in my testing, but never figured anyone would want to look at it during the actual run. I can see your point though, especially for some of the wall cannons/jumps. Many enemies in the early stages were spared due to ammo conservation (ammo spawns during bosses can suck at times, and going out of the way for extra ammo costs time), but in the later stages I chose to not shoot as many as I could because many of them need more than one shot to kill. The grenade launcher can produce 95HP of damage, but it sucks to shoot while strafe running because it fails to keep Turoks horizontal velocity, and instead instantaneously takes on the velocity is has leaving the launcher. So unless the enemies are standing still and are in a wide open space (close spaces causes damage to Turok), and have less that 95HP, it seemed somewhat pointless to just fire at them, even if it connected. IMO, the death screams are some of the more hilarious parts of the game, and shooting without getting to hear them was something I didn't see the point in. As for the alien committing suicide, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Some of the aliens will die via jetpack explosion, but it's just one of the random death animations in the game. Overall, I agree with you for the most part about many of the more entertaining parts of the game being skipped. I would have loved to just sit and watch the 6 different enemies at the end of level 4 battle to the death with each other. And a fight with one of the Triceratops would have been fun. But I tried to show off as much as I could without losing speed.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I do believe shooting an alien straight in the face with a heavy weapon (shotgun, explosive shell, alien weapon, rockets) will cause his countdown jet pack explosion. My qualm about you not killing enough more or less comes from the lack of Spirit Masks or non-human death screams. Leapers, Dinosaurs, and Robot Sentry have the coolest death sounds, and yet they're not present.
hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine
Experienced player (821)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Two explosive shells are needed to take down the alien sentry, and if you take a look at the series of rooms right after the first warp in level 8, I take out two of them with explosive shells, so I'm nearly positive it's a random death animation. But I agree, it is a cool one. If I ever undertake a version two, I'll certainly take your comments into consideration.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Joined: 3/17/2007
Posts: 97
Location: Berkeley, CA
Heavens, that final boss had a lot of trouble finishing you off after mupen's early input termination bug immobilized you... :)
IRC nick: UncombedCoconut